To be specific, the machine basically has a "man" setting and a "woman" setting. Depending on the machine it's often literally just a button pressed by someone on the other side who's guessing.
"Man mode" expects penis but no boobs. "Woman mode" expects boobs but no penis. If you're trans it's pretty much going off no matter what they press unless you've had bottom surgery.
Does this machine and these settings make you safer? No! It does fuck all and catches no one! So basically they've accidentally made a bloody transgender detector they operate for no reason whatsoever but to look like they're doing something. Great đ
So if Iâve had top surgery but no penis, and have an IUD, would it flag my vaginal area due to lack of penis or IUD? My local airport flagged me on my last flight, my returning airport didnât. Wondering if it was the wrong setting or IUD.
I think it varies by TSA agent - Iâve had it flag sometimes, and the agent goes âoh, youâre fine.â And other times they do want to do a pat down because of âsomething wrongâ in that area (no iud here, I think they just assumed male at first, ended up getting patted down by a woman though)
Iâve been told by TSA that an IUD shouldnât flag but itâs consistent enough I call bullshit on that.
Iâm gonna have to do more experiments. When I flew out for vacation I didnât talk much at all (I have a very feminine voice) but got flagged. When I returned I was talking more and didnât get flagged.
i'm not too familiar with the system itself but others in this same thread are reporting that IUDs can get flagged.
i'd imagine the "woman" setting can handle a lack of boobs, especially cause according to also some other posts on here, it can also ping you if you have boobs "too big" according to whatever metric it uses internally lol
That is not exactly true. The machine is not set for a specific sex. They only choose a sex when the scan falls. Which does not happen often. Also there is never just one person in thr box and they are never sitting down. Its always a female and male officer so this comic is lying to make the situation creepier. The male officer is not the one clearing the female passenger
The last time I (as a trans woman) went through airport security, I got stopped at one of these scanners, and there was only a male officer present. When I explained that I was trans, he said I could go through again to be scanned as a man if I wanted, which I agreed to, but it still wouldnât let me through, so he had to feel up my chest to make sure it was just boobs and not a bomb or something, and then let me through.
Presumably if I had insisted on being scanned as a woman, he would have had to feel up my crotch to confirm it was just a penis rather than a bomb down there, but I figured letting him tell the machine I was a man would be the less humiliating option. At no point was I offered the option to have a female officer grope me instead, though maybe I would have if I had signed up for the penis groping rather than the boob groping. In any case, yes, it really is as creepy and stressful as this comic implies.
Just for the record, as former TSA, (unless the changed it now in the you know who days) it is explicitly stated in the SOP that the officer doing the pat down is suppose to match the passengers outward appearing and identifying gender, that TSA officer was massively overstepping and you shouldnât have been in that scenario. Fuck that guy. Fucking creep.
If they actually did change it now thanks to Agent Orange? Thatâs fucking horrifying. Yâall deserve better than the country is giving you.
This was in 2019, so it's possible that it was actually before that policy existed. Honestly, I don't hold anything against the guy who groped me; he was awkward and apologetic about it and didn't seem to be enjoying himself. I got the sense that neither of us had a better option available in that scenario and that the situation was mostly created by the technology itself and the fact that no one involved in its creation either realized or cared what it would mean putting innocent trans people through.
Ah, yeah that might have predated the policy. I canât speak for the SOP that far back.
When I was leaving the TSA there were talks about an update to the AIT body scanner that would basically be a âtrans-person buttonâ coming in an update. Frustrating it seems to have never come out. Would save a lot of grief if it worked properly.
These machines cannot be run with just one person on them. Once you are scanned and there is an alarm they cannot rescan you because they do not like what they see. The machine is not set for male or female. If there is a groin anomaly and you are presenting as female then a female has to clear the area. If you were presenting female there is no world a male officer would feel your breasts. I am not calling you a liar but your story sounds fictional to me.
I've had the experience plenty of times of different genders feeling me up at different times. Sometimes offered options, sometimes not, but I'm not missing my flight because you got the wrong rent-a-fed having a bad day.
It's possible policies have changed in the past few years or are enforced differently at different airports; this incident happened in 2019 at PDX. If not, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe there was a female officer standing by who I didn't notice, but I only saw and spoke to a male officer, and he explicitly offered me the option to be re-scanned as a man. I clearly remember that when I initially went through, he told me the anomaly was in the groin region, and when I went through the second time, it was on my chest. At most I could imagine maybe he did ask if I wanted him to get a female officer to feel my breasts and I said no because I just wanted to get it over with quicker, but I don't recall being offered the option.
Considering my own experience getting crotch "checked" by male TSA, I don't exactly find their story hard to believe. Only difference is that I wasn't offered a rescan. I was offered to be checked in a private room which I turned down.
If they do not have the stuffing the use the metal detector instead of the full body scanner. I recently left the TSA but I worked there for 2 years. During the shutdown we were understaffed. If we didnt have the numbers we couldn't use the body scanner and had to use the metal detector
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u/bopyw 29d ago
What